


A Kiss for Waking

by ausmac



Category: Warcraft (2016), Warcraft - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-21 21:53:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9568457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ausmac/pseuds/ausmac
Summary: Grief was a lonely emotion.  Despite the support of friends and family, he’d never felt so alone.  The presence that had become so important to him was …gone.





	

Grief was a lonely emotion.  Despite the support of friends and family, he’d never felt so alone.  The presence that had become so important to him was …gone.

He looked down at the figure lying in the bed, monitored and treated by healers and servants, a familiar body too still, lacking in its usual vibrant energy and amazing power. He was cleaned, moved and massaged and he know how humiliated the young man would be at the way strangers worked on his body as if it were a damaged toy.

He tried to work out which was his greater grief: that he could do nothing to help, or that there was no time to say everything he wished to say _.  My friend, they aren’t sure if you are still alive in there, there is some brain activity but barely enough to show a living mind.  Some of them, when they don’t think I hear, use terms like “brain dead” and “comatose”.  And I know they mostly believe you have died, that your body simply refuses to believe it._

Apart from utter stillness, he could simply be asleep.  But the stillness is so unnatural.  He was always so active, bouncing around, excited and enthused by everything he saw.  It just wasn’t normal, it wasn’t…right.

He’d always wanted to stroke that hair, that was so often ruffled by an unthinking hand running through it while he read one of his much loved books -- and with no-one around at that moment he could.  It was clean, tidy…too tidy, so he fluffed it up and that looked better.  He looked more himself, even when he was laid out like a corpse.  He swept an errant lock back and gave into that deep-buried desire and bend down to touch the forehead with his lips.  He kissed him there as he never had before – though he’d wanted to, oh yes.

It wasn’t enough, even so.  He closed the door, wanting privacy to be with him if it was the last time he could be.  He slipped onto the bed and carefully wrapped his arms around the still body and rested his head next to the pale cheeks.  He was a warm, solid person, alive in spite of what he healers said, still breathing, still _there_. 

_You’ve never known how often I have wanted to do this, except that I wanted your arms around me, wanted those soft but clever hands stroking my head, touching my face, holding me while you kissed me.  Should I even think such thing? Suppose not.  I don’t care.  I can now._

_Khadgar.  Please wake up.  
_

It certainly isn’t proper for a warrior to cry and he finds himself doing that, sobbing against Khadgar like a child.  _Always so controlled, never give into emotion.  It’s all I have right now, emotion, so it is only right it have its time._

“Please,” Lothar sobbed against Khadgar’s cheek, “please don’t die.  Wake up, please.”

Death is no respecter of dignity, it seemed  It robs them both of pride.  Yet he’d humble himself before the cosmos if it would just let him talk to Khadgar one last time….

He stopped, suddenly as Khadgar’s breathing became irregular and he thought : _now, it is happening now, you are dying right here, next to me_ and he did something that he’d never done before and afterward would never understand; he put all his hidden love, his restrained passions and wanting and _needing_ into a single traumatic cry… _  
_

_KHADGAR!_

Part of him sensed the healer’s entry through a shattered door, sensed them trying to separate him from Khadgar’s spirit that he’d somehow found through the barrier of life, but he hung on and searched.  

_You are alone in the dark, looking for a way out.  Even then you are not afraid but you see me and you are surprised.  
_

_“Anduin?  Why are you here?”  
_

_I make my way to you, reach out my hand.  “I came looking for you.”  
_

_You shake your head, those familiar eyes bright with affection.  “I have to go.”  
_

_“No.  You can’t.  I won’t let you.”_

_“It may be my time.”  
_

_A doubt.  I grab hold of it as I take your hand.  “It isn’t.  You’re just hurt, you need to come back with me.  You wouldn’t leave me alone in the dark, would you?”  
_

_I pinch at your sense of responsibility..  “No, I would not want to.  You are very special to me, but sometimes we cannot help –“  
_

_“No!”  I move again and then I am holding you, surrounding you with my love and my need.  “Please come back.  I am very lonely.   I have something important to tell you.”  
_

_That catches your interest.  “What?”  
_

_“You must come back.  You’ll never know my secret if you don’t.”  
_

_You frown and scowl and look to argue but I just hang on.  I tug your hand, pull you away from where you were going and you follow me, curious as ever about all things mysterious, and stronger with each beat of both our hearts. . . ._

 

When Lothar wakes he is in the bed next to Khadgar and he turned his head to see the brown eyes, open, watching him.  He bent his head, just a little, and kissed Khadgar’s lips very softly.  The young mage blinked, coming fully awake.

“Wha..secret?  The voice is dry and slurred and weak, but it’s there.

“I think you know already.”

He tried to speak but he was still very fragile and the Healers were there, trying to separate them and he hung onto Lothar, determined and frustrated by his weakness.

“No…want…”  He sighed, annoyed into stillness at last, and looked at Lothar with the sort of warmth he’d rarely seen offered to him, an affection deeper than friendship, a wry and gentle humour.   “Foolish. . .”

“Yes.  I don’t care. I only care you came back.  For me.  For us.”

The Healers and the others present didn’t really understand, not that either of them were any wiser.  He lay stretched out next to Khadgar as he drifted towards a normal, healing sleep.  He held Khadgar’s  hand to the last moment as he slept with a deep, satisfied breath.  Another chance.  Another day to be with him.  Another beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Had this one sitting there for a while as I did other things, so I offer a bit of sentimental affection as a change in pace. Unbeta'd and with a cursory check, all errors due to me being sadly human (:


End file.
